The Show That Predicted Out Gays in the NFL

Ten years later, ESPN's Playmakers looks way ahead of its time

Michael Sam will become the first openly out NFL player, but he certainly isn't the NFL's first gay athlete. His story will already be familiar to those who watched ESPN's Playmakers, a fictional TV series that portrayed the dark side of a pro football league, including drug use, spousal abuse, and institutional homophobia. The show, which was canceled ten years ago last week, featured an episode focusing on a gay player struggling with his orientation, who comes out to his teammates (watch that scene here). Focusing on real-life issues boosted the show to great ratings, but the NFL was still able to convince ESPN to sack it. Since that happened, the NFL has become even more scandalous than the show its commissioner fretted about. And ESPN has stretched even further to protect its conflicts of interest. Although gay tolerance has become much more widespread both in sports and society more broadly this past decade, not much has changed at ESPN.

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Even though Playmakers averaged 1.62 million households and was ESPN's highest-rated program aside from Sunday night NFL football and Saturday primetime NCAA football, it was terminated. Mark Shapiro, the ESPN executive then in charge of programming and production, cited the NFL's negative reaction to the show as the "primary factor" in the cancellation. But, he added, "we made the decision. We do not let anyone dictate our programming agenda." He also said, "It's our opinion that we're not in the business of antagonizing our partner." (These comments came the same tumultuous week for the NFL as Janet Jackson's Super Bowl boob fiasco.)

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That's like a guy dumping his girlfriend and telling her his coworkers' distaste for her was the main reason he's leaving. But after she says he's insecure and over-reliant on others, he adds, "But it's still my decision to leave you." Playmakers is the girlfriend whose heart was broken over keeping face. And ESPN is the boyfriend who's too much of a coward to admit the truth.

Terry Ingram, one of Playmakers' directors, put it to me bluntly in an interview last week. "The rumor around the set was that the commissioner of football said, 'Get this shit off the air.' ... The number-one factor was, 'You're not getting Monday Night Football if you keep the show on.' That's what came down to the crew."

"We knew all this stuff was true. We were just pulling headlines out of the papers... [Playmakers] wanted to deal with real issues. We were dealing with spousal abuse. We put one of the characters in rehab. And then you find out he has a gay lover he's trying to hide. With the way it was set up, you were able to use sports as the backdrop to the personal struggles of people within that industry."

Ingram said the show was ahead of its time and pushed boundaries on a station that wasn't used to doing so. Today he believes it would have a better chance at surviving as cable networks like HBO and AMC air more grim shows. And online services like Netflix would be great outlets for the show, he said. Plus, there'd be much more real material to draw from. "If we were doing it now it would just be juicier and darker," he said.

Playmakers wasn't the last time ESPN let business partners dictate its content. In August, ESPN backed out of a PBS Frontline documentary about NFL head injuries. Despite a 15-month collaboration, ESPN was very clear about not having its logo attached to the show, which was going to portray the league as a company that improperly informed its employees of risk as many went on to suffer long-term brain trauma.

"He [North Dallas Forty author Peter Gent] was an independent author, a former player, who was not under an obligation to present NFL football, NFL players, NFL teams in a way that makes it a valuable, credible, respected product. You [Disney and ESPN] have that obligation, and I think what you're doing here is directly undercutting that. People want to watch sports when they can respect the athletes. This program leads them to have a view of the athletes that leads them to disrespect the athletes."

In the NFL's view, athletes must always be presented as "respectful." Even when they do drugs, abuse women, and murder. And in ESPN's view, they mustn't have a hand in portraying the organization that employees these men as unethical. Even when that organization uses pseudo-science to mislead its players into believing falsehoods. Because, of course, ratings.

Now that 10 years have passed, let's remember Playmakers as a foreshadowing, slain in a public-relations scapegoating. And ESPN as the worldwide leader in letting sports leagues call their own shots.